2022-10-10
I woke up at 01:00 (am, for those not using 24 hour time) yesterday and had trouble falling back asleep. Eventually I decided to get up, mostly because I was getting hungry.
Of course I spent most of the day being pretty tired, but boy did I get things done before I went to bed at 22:00. Apart from chores, of which I did more than I thought I would do during the entire weekend, I made very much progress on my tea mod for OpenTTD. In fact I made so much progress that I could have been done by now if I hadn't had "bright" ideas. I blame sleep deprivation.
My plan was to draw one or two sprites for each industry type; tea tree farm, tea factory, tea house. If I had settled for that you'd probably be able to play with that mod right now.
Instead I came far enough that I drew a field for the farm and then thought "wouldn't it be fun if you could see workers walking around in the fields?"
Turns out it is fun. Very fun, indeed. And also about 100 times more complicated to learn and implement than just a static sprite.
Having now drawn 24 sprites for a single field tile I am very grateful for the fact that I draw my sprites in many layers. It means I only have to fiddle with the layers where things are moving instead of re-drawing things. So when I'd done all 24 sprites and then discovered that I really needed to add some details to the tea trees it was just a matter of making the change once and then copy pasting it over an entire layer.
When can you play with this mod?
When it's good and ready, that's when. The farm is almost ready, for some measure of "almost". I might decide to re-draw some sprites or add some more, of course. At least the factory and tea house are going to be static.
Betting on whether that lasts until I get there is now open.
-- CC0 Björn Wärmedal